The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America

This book is very interesting and offers a look into some important personalities in the Court's history. The premise of the book is that judges are more effective when they compromise their ideals to gain incremental changes and when they build rapport with other justices. This is defined as "judicial temperament" by the author.

Each judge's judicial temperament and effectiveness is profiled in comparison to a contemporary with an opposite temperament. The author veers from his course when discussing Justice Scalia, though.

Jefferson is presented as brilliant, but idealistic. Holmes is brilliant, but self-absorbed. Douglas is brilliant, but self-aggrandizing. Scalia, who is also brilliant, is presented is little more than an acerbic dogmatist with a biting wit.

More than any other justice profiled, the author attempts to evaluate the merits of Scalia's legal opinion - uniformly drawing on the opinions of those opposed to Scalia's jurisprudential philosophy.

Much is made of the Bush v. Gore case, for example. The author quotes Scalia's recital of the legal basis for an injunction - something not terribly exciting in the real world. Yet, it is presented as a prediction of the outcome of the vote count. "Scalia's prediction was wrong," the author chides.

The real-world inconsequence of Scalia's statement in the injunction and the overzealous attention paid to it by some are traceable directly back to political flamethrowers working for Gore, not to any legal scholar. There are several other examples of heavily-biased criticisms that are uncharacteristic for this book.

In the end, I felt that I had been set up - that the book's premise was really just a pretense to launch an assault on Scalia. The author stretches legal reasoning to make Scalia seem inconsistent on issues where he is steadfastly consistent.

I still enjoyed the book, but I could have done without the bias.

While not a comprehensive history of the Supreme Court, this book does illuminate key periods in the court's history by tying the judicial philosophies of justices such as Marshall and Warren to those of contemporary justices such as O'Connor and Scalia. The book is succinctly written and well-read, and while an academic work, it avoids being too dry. A must-read for anyone interested in legal philosophy or American history.

You would not be reading this review if you were not interested in the subject. So I can highly recommend the book to you. It is well written with biographical outlines of the personalities involved and the case histories that exemplify the outcomes both at the time and in retrospect. Personal views of the author are evident but do not detract from the content.
Sklar’s narration makes the book. A lesser narrator could have made the author’s lecture like presentation dry. I will look for more of his work.

Although Rosen's personal bias comes through at times, his perspective on the history of the United States Surpeme Court is interesting. If you are a "Court Watcher" you will find the last chapter on Rehnquist/Saclia and the epilogue with excerpts from an interview with the new CHief Justice particularly interesting. Historians will appreciate the earlier chapters.

I am a lawyer who follows the Supreme Court carefully. My politics are mostly to the left of center. I agree with this author's sentiment that Bush v Gore was a shocking intrusion into the prerogatives of the political branches, and arguably illegitimate. But I suppose if I were to write a book about it - the Court - I'd try to do so without turning it into a screed.

A person who makes it to that bench should be presumed to be, by default, worthy of respect. If on rare occasions I deem a judge less than worthy - such as Clarence Thomas - it should be fair to say that it is remarkable because it is rare.

Most importantly, I would try to understand the operations of the Court in terms of their jurisprudence more than their politics. This slim scold of a book fails that standard on every front. It is less a book about the Court than a polemic on its personalities. Mr Rosen's portrayal of Justice Kennedy, for example, isn't so much withering, as was no doubt the plan, but rather, puerile. The author presumes to accuse that judge of intellectual vanity, while filling up these pages with his own. If you want to know about the Supreme Court, this is not a good place to start.

This is an outstanding book -- thoughtful, well-researched, well-written, and well-narrated. Rosen's thesis is both intriguing and argued compellingly. He offers valuable insights about the court that apply to other dimensions of our public, political life.

No longer are these people just bobble heads on top of black robes. This is such a guilty pleasure. To discover that our justices are regular people with all of the quirks and brillance that make us human makes it so worth the download. Beware! If you are a Supreme Court geek like I am your just gonna want to know more. This really is Edu-tainment!

This is a fascinating and well written narrative depicting the lives, philosophies and at times combative interactions of six of the greatest Supreme Court justices. Anyone new to US judicial history or, like myself, well versed in the subject, will surely fine this book insightful, thought provoking and highly entertaining.

As a lawyer, I found this book somewhat superficial and difficult to listen to. You really had to keep focused on the narrator to understand the points being made as the author switched between the various Supreme Court Justices.